springer springer okt 2007 (604 Ergebnisse)

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -In Spies in the Sky Patrick Norris responds to the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the dawn of the Space Age ¿ the launch of Sputnik 1 ¿ with a review of the most important historical applications of space science for the benefit of the human race during that half century, focusing particularly on the prevention of nuclear war. The author addresses the oft quoted conclusion that the Moon landings and the ¿race to the Moon¿ between the two superpowers were a side effect of the Cold War, by describing what he believes was the more important event ¿ the use of satellites by military to prevent the Cold War becoming a ¿hot war¿. In developing the story the author casts a spotlight on a little-known aspect of the Space Age, namely the military dimension. Today military satellites represent 25 percent of all satellites in orbit, and they are just as important now in preventing regional nuclear war as they were in preventing global Armageddon more than 30 years ago.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 240 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This volume is dedicated to 'Mechanics in Architecture', that is, the science of structural mechanics, including the behaviour of structures, internal forces, and deformation, as well as the development of new structural systems to resist thrusts as a result of new architectural forms. It is a field of enquiry that examines a particular aspect of the relationships between architecture and the mathematical sciences. Some of the papers in this issue were presented at the Nexus 2006 conference during a special session dedicated to mechanics. Other research papers focus on an eighteenth-century Belgian pyramid, aspects of 'fractal' architecture, and properties of a family of irrational values. The issue also includes a description and evaluation of a university-level course in architecture and mathematics, Rachel Fletcher's Geometer's Angle column, and book reviews.Springer Basel AG in Springer Science + Business Media, Heidelberger Platz 3, 14197 Berlin 228 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Direct marketing is a fast-growing and dominant domestic marketing instrument in many countries. Direct marketing follows the path of the rapid advances of globalization: international direct marketing (IDM) is already a multi-billion dollar business and an attractive instrument for foreign market entry and international customer communication.This book is the first to focus exclusively on IDM, combining state-of-the-art knowledge, best practice and unique data: The first part is a comprehensive, well-structured review, covering relevant sources ranging from academic journals to practitioner magazines. The second part consists of best practice examples of various aspects of IDM. The third part contains a summary of a proprietary consumer study on direct marketing attitudes and affinities across 24 countries in North America, Europe and Asia. The book provides the reader with a comprehensive and easy-to-understand guide to international direct marketing.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 356 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 416 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -SEAFOOD for Thought Headline-grabbing though it may be, the software industry¿s large-scale allo- tion of work to developing countries has not so far generated much technical analysis. Attention is usually limited to the possible political and economic c- sequences, in particular the fears of loss of employment in the West. The aim of the present volume is di erent. We recognize that o shore development is here to stay, and not just a result of cost considerations. It is ¿ more accurately ¿ a form of distributed development, relying on advances in communications to let the software industry, in our globalizedworld,bene t from the wide distribution of human talent. But it is also the source of a new set of challenges, to which accepted software engineering principles and techniques have not completely prepared us. Producing high-quality software on time and within budget is hard enough when the QA team is across the aisle from the core developers, and the customers across the street; what then when the bulk of the development team is across an ocean or two The rst SEAFOOD ¿ Software Engineering Advances For Outsourced and 1 O shore Development ¿ conference (prompted by an earlier article ) was an - tempt not only to bring software engineering to outsourcing but also to bring outsourcing into the collective consciousness of the software engineering c- munity. This is bene cial to both sides: successful outsourcing requires strong softwareengineering guidance, but researchin the eld must for its part account forthenewworldofsoftwaredevelopment. 216 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Computers and Games, CG 2006, co-located with the 14th World Computer-Chess Championship and the 11th Computer Olympiad. The 24 revised papers cover all aspects of artificial intelligence in computer-game playing. Topics addressed are evaluation and learning, search, combinatorial games and theory opening and endgame databases, single-agent search and planning, and computer Go.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 304 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The 2007 IEEE International Workshop on Analysis and Modeling of Faces and Gestures(AMFG)isthethirdworkshopofitstypeorganizedinconjunctionwith ICCV, this time in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Our primary goal is to bring together researchersand research groupsto review the status of recognition, analysis and modeling of face, gesture, activity, and behavior; to discuss the challenges that we are facing; and to explore future directions. This year we received 55 submissions. Each paper was reviewed by three program committee members. The whole reviewing process was double blind. However,due to size limit, we were only able to accommodate 22 papers, among which 8 are orals and 14 are posters. The topics covered by these accepted papers include feature representation, 3D face, robust recognition under pose and illumination variations,video-basedface recognition,learning,facial motion analysis, body pose estimation, and sign recognition. A special word of thanks goes to Dr. Feng Zhao, our organizing chair, for his dedication and great e orts in maintaining both the online submission system and workshop website and in handling most of the author contacts. We are indebted to the advisory committee members for their valuable suggestions and to the program committee members for their hard work and timely reviews. Finally, we thank Cognitec System GmbH and Siemens Corporate Research for their sponsorship. October 2007 S. Kevin Zhou Wen-Yi Zhao Xiaoou Tang Shaogang Gong Organization AMFG 2007 was held in conjunction with ICCV 2007. Workshop Chairs S. Kevin Zhou Siemens Corporate Research Wen-Yi Zhao Intuitive Surgical, Inc. 320 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Littlewood-Paley theory is an essential tool of Fourier analysis, with applications and connections to PDEs, signal processing, and probability. It extends some of the benefits of orthogonality to situations where orthogonality doesn¿t really make sense. It does so by letting us control certain oscillatory infinite series of functions in terms of infinite series of non-negative functions. Beginning in the 1980s, it was discovered that this control could be made much sharper than was previously suspected. The present book tries to give a gentle, well-motivated introduction to those discoveries, the methods behind them, their consequences, and some of their applications.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 244 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Automated Technology for Verification and Analysis, ATVA 2007. The 29 revised full papers presented together with seven short papers address theoretical methods to achieve correct software or hardware systems, including both functional and non functional aspects; as well as applications of theory in engineering methods and particular domains and handling of practical problems occurring in tools.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 584 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -New interferometers as the VLTI, the Keck-I and CHARA along with their sophisticated instrumentation have provided new levels of accuracy, spectral resolution and access to various spectral bands from the optical to the thermal infrared. Investigations are now enabled on a wealth of astrophysical sources with unprecedented levels of angular resolution and sensitivity, producing a considerable body of new, exciting scientific results.Celebrating the completion of the first phase of the VLTI development, the organisors of the ESO workshop 'The Power of Optical/IR Interferometry', held in April 2005, saw an opportunity to invite the community to come together to review and discuss not just interferometers, but science with interferometers and its impact on astronomy as a whole. The workshop was also intended to showcase ideas and concepts for the future of interferometry, and in particular for the second generation of VLTI instrumentation.This volume contains the proceedings of this workshop and serves as reference for astronomers working with optical and infrared interferometry. 636 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This book provides a timely revision of the definitive source for quick reference and up-to-date information on the primary health care of women. Containing contributions by leaders in obstetrics-gynecology, primary care and relevant subspecialties, the book presents the latest information from respected authorities. New case studies have been added at the end of each chapter to provide useful information for the busy clinician. New chapters include: Elderly Patients; Cardiovascular Hypertension; The Role of Applied and Genomic Molecular Biology; and Nutrition, Obesity, and Eating Disorders. This book is a must-have reference for the busy clinicianSpringer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 568 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -About the book, the project Equilibrium Between Phases of Matter ¿ Phenomenology and Thermodynamics is a textbook, in which the phenomenology, the thermodynamic theory, and the practical use of phase diagrams are presented in three levels that diverge in nature ¿ in particular as regards the role of thermodynamics. The book has been written from a chemical and geological teaching background. Each of the three levels of the book is representative of a particular course in a curriculum. Level 0: an introduction to phase diagrams The philosophy behind the ground level is that most of the characteristics of equilibrium between phases can be understood without the use of thermodynamics, realizing that, in a common-sense manner, the experimental observations on equilibria and spontaneous changes, and elementary notions about interactions, indicate the way to go. In spite of all this, the central figure in level zero, right from the beginning, is the chemical potential ¿ a concept firmly rooted in thermodynamics. Equilibrium conditions in terms of chemical potentials, and the variables necessary to define a system in equilibrium are, are the basic elements of the system formulation.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 420 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Edited in collaboration with FoLLI, the Association of Logic, Language and Information, this book constitutes the third volume of the FoLLI LNAI subline. The 17 revised papers of this Festschrift volume - published in honour of Daniele Mundici on the occasion of his 60th birthday - include invited extended versions of the most interesting contributions to the International Conference on the Algebraic and Logical Foundations of Many-Valued Reasoning, held in Gargnano, Italy, in March 2006.Daniele Mundici is widely acknowledged as a leading scientist in many-valued logic and ordered algebraic structures. In the last decades, his work has unveiled profound connections between logic and such diverse fields of research as functional analysis, probability and measure theory, the geometry of toric varieties, piecewise linear geometry, and error-correcting codes. Several prominent logicians, mathematicians, and computer scientists attending the conference have contributed to this wide-ranging collection with papers all variously related to Daniele's work.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 324 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed postproceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Trends in Enterprise Application Architecture, TEAA 2006. It identifies issues in enterprise application architecture and proposes as well as evaluates a solution. Topics of interest include model driven architecture, enterprise development environments, service oriented architecture, data integration, enterprise grid computing, load balancing, and enterprise component platforms. 368 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This is the third volume in the Paris-Princeton Lectures in Financial Mathematics, which publishes, on an annual basis, cutting-edge research in self-contained, expository articles from outstanding specialists, both established and upcoming. Coverage includes articles by René Carmona, Ivar Ekeland/Erik Taflin, Arturo Kohatsu-Higa, Pierre-Louis Lions/Jean-Michel Lasry, and Huyên Pham.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 260 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Algebraic curves and surfaces are an old topic of geometric and algebraic investigation. They have found applications for instance in ancient and m- ern architectural designs, in number theoretic problems, in models of b- logical shapes, in error-correcting codes, and in cryptographic algorithms. Recently they have gained additional practical importance as central objects in computer-aided geometric design. Modern airplanes, cars, and household appliances would be unthinkable without the computational manipulation of algebraic curves and surfaces. Algebraic curves and surfaces combine fas- nating mathematical beauty with challenging computational complexity and wide spread practical applicability. In this book we treat only algebraic curves, although many of the results and methods can be and in fact have been generalized to surfaces. Being the solution loci of algebraic, i. e. , polynomial, equations in two variables, plane algebraiccurvesarewellsuited forbeing investigatedwith symboliccomputer algebra methods. This is exactly the approach we take in our book. We apply algorithms from computer algebra to the analysis, and manipulation of al- braic curves. To a large extent this amounts to being able to represent these algebraic curves in di erent ways, such as implicitly by de ning polyno- als, parametrically by rational functions, or locally parametrically by power series expansions around a point.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 280 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Here is a helpful guide, A-to-Z guide on the structures of chemicals implicated in contact dermatitis. It describes each molecule along with its principal name for classification. The dictionary also lists the most important synonyms, the Chemical Abstract Service (CAS) Registry Number that characterizes the substance and its chemical structure, and relevant literature references. This guide is a must-have for each physician involved with the diagnosis and treatment of patients with contact dermatitis and allergic skin disease.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 292 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -By virtue of their special algebraic structures, Pythagorean-hodograph (PH) curves offer unique advantages for computer-aided design and manufacturing, robotics, motion control, path planning, computer graphics, animation, and related fields. This book offers a comprehensive and self-contained treatment of the mathematical theory of PH curves, including algorithms for their construction and examples of their practical applications. Special features include an emphasis on the interplay of ideas from algebra and geometry and their historical origins, detailed algorithm descriptions, and many figures and worked examples. The book may appeal, in whole or in part, to mathematicians, computer scientists, and engineers.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 748 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Most data compression methods that are based on variable-length codes employ the Huffman or Golomb codes. However, there are a large number of less-known codes that have useful properties - such as those containing certain bit patterns, or which are robust - and these can be useful. This book brings this large set of codes to the attention of workers in the field and of students of computer science.David Salomon¿s crystal clear style of writing and presentation, which has been familiar to readers for many years now allows easy access to the topic. Readers are only required to have a general familiarity with computer methods and essentially an understanding of the representation of data in bits and files.Computer scientists, electrical engineers and students majoring in computer science or electrical engineering will find this volume an invaluable resource, as will those readers in various physical sciences and mathematics.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 208 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This LNCS volume contains the papers presented at the second Workshop on Human Motion Understanding, Modeling, Capture and Animation, which took place on October 20th, 2007, accompanying the 11th IEEE International C- ference on Computer Vision in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In total, 38 papers were submitted to this workshop,of which 22 papers were accepted. We were careful to ensure a high standard of quality when selecting the papers. All submissions were double-blind reviewed by at least two experts. Out of the 22 accepted papers, 10 were selected for oral presentation and 12 for posters. We thank the authors of the accepted papers for taking the reviewers¿ comments into account in the nal published versions of their papers. We thank all of the authors who submitted their work, and we trust that the reviewers¿ comments have been of value for their research activities. The accepted papers re ect the state of the art in the eld and cover various topicsrelatedto humanmotiontrackingandanalysis.Thepapersinthisvolume have been classi ed into three categories based on the topics they cover: human motion capture and pose estimation, body and limb tracking and segmentation, and activity recognition.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 344 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The book is an organized approach to understanding bone growth and disease. It integrates anatomic and radiologic knowledge of enchondral and membranous bone growth and emphasizes the similarities of the physis and acrophysis in development. While mainly written for trainees in radiology, pediatrics, and orthopedics, it will also be useful to practitioners in these fields. The artwork, jointly produced by artist and author, illustrates the concepts being promulgated. The identification of abnormality is aided by the explanations of the causes in terms of pattern recognition.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 112 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Object-Oriented Programming and Java presents two important topics in contemporary software development: object-oriented programming and Java. This book takes a different teaching approach from most available literature, it begins with the description of real-world object interaction scenarios and explains how they can be translated, represented and executed using object-oriented programming paradigm.Principally, Java is an object-oriented programming language. By establishing a solid foundation in the understanding of object-oriented programming concepts and their applications, the book provides readers with the pre-requisites for writing proper object-oriented programs using Java.Object-Oriented Programming and Java covers the latest in Java technologies and is suitable for undergraduate or postgraduate courses on object-oriented technology, and in particular, using Java as a programming language for creating object-oriented programs.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 344 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -It is a great pleasure to present the proceedings of the 10th IFIP/IEEE International Conference on Management of Multimedia and Mobile Networks and Services (MMNS 2007). The MMNS 2007 Conference was held in San Jose, California, USA during October 31 ¿ November 2 as part of the 3rd International Week on Management of Networks and Services (Manweek 2007). As in the previous three years, the Manweek umbrella allowed an international audience of researchers and scientists from industry and academia ¿ who are researching and developing management systems ¿ to share views and ideas and present their state-of-the-art results. The other events co-located with Manweek 2007 were the 18th IFIP/IEEE International Workshop on Distributed Systems: Operations and Management (DSOM 2007), the 7th IEEE Workshop on IP Operations and Management (IPOM2007), the 2nd IEEE International Workshop on Modeling Autonomic Communications Environments (MACE 2007), and the 1st IEEE/IFIP International Workshop on End-to-End Virtualization and Grid Management (EVGM 2007). Under this umbrella, MMNS proved itself again as a top public venue for results dissemination and intellectual collaboration with specific emphasis on multimedia and mobility aspects of end-to-end services. These aspects of management are becoming a major challenge in the ability to deliver cost effective end-to-end multimedia-based services in the upcoming 4G wireless systems. 212 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This volume contains the proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on Database Programming Languages (DBPL 2007), held in Vienna, Austria, on September 23¿24, 2007. DBPL 2007 was one of 15 meetings co-located with VLDB (the International Conference on Very Large Data Bases). DBPLcontinues to presentthe verybest workat the intersectionof database and programming language research. The proceedings include a paper based on the invited talk by Wenfei Fan and the 16 contributed papers that were selected by the programcommittee from 41 submissions. Every submission was reviewed by at least three members of the program committee. In addition, the program committee sought the opinions of additional referees, selected because of their expertise on particular topics. The nal selection of papers was made during the last week of July. We would like to thank all of the authors who submitted papers to the c- ference, and the members of the program committee for their excellent work. The program committee did not meet in person, but carried out extensive d- cussions during the electronic PC meeting. We are grateful to Andrei Voronkov for his EasyChair system that made it so easy to manage these discussions. Finally, we would also like to thank Christoph Koch and Gavin Bierman for their assistance and sound counsel, and the organizers of VLDB 2007 for taking care of the local organization of DBPL.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 272 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -¿Data-Driven 3D Facial Animation¿ systematically describes the important techniques developed over the last ten years or so. Although 3D facial animation is used more and more in the entertainment industries, to date there have been very few books that address the techniques involved.Comprehensive in scope, the book covers not only traditional lip-sync (speech animation), but also expressive facial motion, facial gestures, facial modeling, editing and sketching, and facial animation transferring. It provides an up-to-date reference source for academic research and for professionals working in the facial animation field. An edited volume, the book brings together contributions from leading researchers and practitioners working in both academia and in the leading animation studios.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 308 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -On behalf of the IEEE Communications Society, the Technical Committee on Network Operations and Management (CNOM), the Manweek 2007 Organizing Committee, and the members of the IPOM Technical Program Committee, it is our pleasure to present the proceedings of the Seventh IEEE Workshop on IP Operations and Management (IPOM2007), held as part of Manweek 2007 during October 31-November 2, 2007. With the widespread deployment of IP-based networks, their operations and management have become increasingly important in terms of understanding emerging technical and scientific problems; lessons from such understanding are particularly important for future Internet design and management. Like the previous IPOM workshops, IPOM 2007 was co-located with several related events as part of the 3rd International Week on Management of Networks and Services (Manweek 2007). The other events were the 10th IFIP/IEEE International Conference on Management of Multimedia and Mobile Networks and Services (MMNS 2007), the 18th IFIP/IEEE International Workshop on Distributed Systems: Operations and Management (DSOM 2007), the 2ndIEEE International Workshop on Modeling Autonomic Communications Environments (MACE 2007), and the 1st IEEE/IFIP International Workshop on End-to-End Virtualization and Grid Management (EVGM 2007). Co-locating those events provided the opportunity for an exchange of ideas between research communities that work on related topics, allowing participants to forge links and exploit synergies.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 216 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Paolo Ulivi and David Harland provide in Robotic Exploration of the Solar System a detailed history of unmanned missions of exploration of our Solar System. As in their previous book Lunar Exploration, the subject will be treated wherever possible from an engineering and scientific standpoint. Technical descriptions of the spacecraft, of their mission designs and of instrumentations will be provided. Scientific results will be discussed in considerable depth, together with details of mission management. The book will be comprehensive, covering missions and results from the 1950s until the present day, and some of the latest missions and their results will appear in a popular science book for the first time. The authors will also cover many unflown missions, providing an indication of the ideas that proved to be unfulfilled at the time but which may still be proven and useful in the future. The project will deliver three volumes totaling over 1000 pages, providing comprehensive coverage of the topic.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 596 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Model-driven development has become the most important new paradigm in software development and has already demonstrated considerable impact in reducing time to market and improving product quality. However, the development of high-quality systems not only requires systematic development processes but also systematic test processes.This book is about systematic, model-driven test processes in the context of UML. As UML provides only limited means for the design and development of test artifacts, a consortium was formed by the Object Management Group (OMG) to develop a UML profile for model-driven testing ¿ the UML Testing Profile (UTP), an official OMG standard since 2005.Written by the original members of this standardization group, this book shows you how to use UML to test complex software systems. The authors introduce UTP step-by-step, using a case study that illustrates how UTP can be used for test modeling and test specification. Yoüll learn how UTP concepts can be used for functional and non-functional testing, with example applications and best practices for user-interfaces and service oriented architectures. In addition, the authors demonstrate how to apply UTP using frameworks like TTCN-3 and the JUnit test framework for Java.This book is the definitive reference for the only UML-based test specification language, written by the creators of that language. It is supported by an Internet site that provides information on the latest tools and uses of the profile.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 200 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Integrating nano and microphysical effects, this book's team of expert authors offers new insights into self-organized structure formation in nanomaterials. A major question addressed in this book is the role of spatial and temporal order. In particular, you'll discover how to apply concepts developed on macroscopic and microscopic scales to structure formation occurring on nanoscales, a key focus of interest at the frontiers of science. 176 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Random trees and tree-valued stochastic processes are of particular importance in combinatorics, computer science, phylogenetics, and mathematical population genetics. Using the framework of abstract 'tree-like' metric spaces (so-called real trees) and ideas from metric geometry such as the Gromov-Hausdorff distance, Evans and his collaborators have recently pioneered an approach to studying the asymptotic behaviour of such objects when the number of vertices goes to infinity. These notes survey the relevant mathematical background and present some selected applications of the theory. 216 pp. Englisch.